For Apple, accessibility is much more than lip service

While Voice Control might seem like a fancy, cool feature for many users, it …

We have discussed the advancements Apple has made in accessibility to Mac OS X and even the iPhone in the past, but recent examples show that Apple's attention to detail in technologies technologies like VoiceOver and Voice Control can make all the difference in the world for users with speech or sight impairments. These technologies are earning Apple awards and the appreciation of users and further separate Apple from the competition.

It was just a few weeks ago when we noted comments from industrial designer Mike Calvo, whose company Serotek is involved in accessibility design, on how well accessibility is engineered into the iPhone. "Apple understands that accessibility should be about far more than developing custom solutions which pay lip service to the idea of accessibility but detract from the out-of-box experience enjoyed by everyone else," he wrote in his assessment of the iPhone. Now, after the release of iPhone OS 3.1, the Mac-cessibility Network noted that Apple has added an additional 16 improvements to the accessibility features of Apple's mobile devices. These include controls for cutting and pasting text or even editing video using VoiceOver and Voice Control, reading PDF files, and using Voice Control over a Bluetooth headset. The continued attention to detail shows that Apple doesn't take accessibility lightly.

This attention to detail has also earned Apple an award from the National Federation for the Blind. Tomorrow, during its first ever Web Accessibility Day conference, the NFB will give an award to Apple recognizing the company for making the iPhone—a device largely defined by its graphical user interface that works with a touchscreen that has no haptic feedback—accessible and useable for those with visual impairments.

In addition to recognition from the NFB, though, Apple's technology has been recognized by some users recently for enabling them to communicate without the need for costly specialized systems. Users are finding that an iPhone with some specialized software, or even an off-the-shelf Mac with VoiceOver, can replace expensive, clunky text-to-speech devices for far less money. For example, The New York Times detailed the plight of a San Francisco woman who lost her voice due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She recently supplanted her text-to-speech computer for an iPhone loaded with a $150 text-to-speech app, which lets her "wear her voice around her neck while snuggling with her 5-year-old son."

That story prompted a letter to the editor from none other than famed film critic Roger Ebert, who lost his voice to throat cancer. He told the Times, "After trying an $8,000 custom device with little computing power and a small, dim screen, I tried the built-in speech software on my MacBook and found it much more practical." He uses the text-to-speech capability to discuss online news with his wife, for instance. While the expensive custom devices have other features, such as e-mail and Web browsing, disabled for complex insurance reasons, Ebert notes that "[a]nyone who uses a computer and has lost the power of speech knows that e-mail becomes invaluable."

It's easy to point to a list of such features and say, "Great job, Apple," but unless you have ever had to rely on the features, it's difficult to understand just how important they are. Expensive, specialized devices may always be necessary for some users, but Apple's focus on accessibility (even iPods have VoiceOver) could make an iPhone or a Mac all that some people need. The personal testimony of such users really drives home how disabilities can make computing and communicating a serious challenge, and how critical technologies like VoiceOver, Voice Control, and Universal Access are to giving these users the ability to participate in what the rest of us simply take for granted.